Virgin Tales (New Documentary)

[onager]

Premiered on Showtime this week, also available elsewhere:

For two years, the filmmakers follow the Wilson offspring as they prepare for their fairytale vision of romance and marriage and seek out their own prince and princess spouses.

In the process, a broader theme emerges: how the religious right is grooming a young generation of virgins to embody an Evangelically-grounded Utopia in America.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2076984/

In a quick scan of Internet reviews from all over the place, the word that seems to be used most often about this documentary is "creepy."

No kidding. Meet Randy Wilson - the guy who invented the "Purity Ball." The docu shows plenty of footage of these purity-parties. Which feature gangs of young girls in fluffy white dresses, dancing around a huge wooden cross.

Weirdly enough, this reminded me of the "virgins jumping the fire" scene in The Wicker Man.

Wilson's day job is flacking for the Family Research Council. A group he insists, with a straight face, is "not about politics." WHAT!?!

The director, Mirjam von Arx, catches one unguarded moment at an FRC party in Washington. One man asks: "If the Constitution is neutral on religion and our country was never intended to be a Christian nation...then why are we doing this?" The answer seems to be: "Because our Xian morality is superior to everybody elses."

As always, watch and draw your own conclusions.

[frogmarch]

1. Not sure I'll be able to stomach it,

since the trailer alone made me want to vomit.

Creepy pretty much describes it. The fathers' obsession with their daughters' "purity" strikes me as incestuous lust.

[A HERETIC I AM]

2. Sure to set all kinds of box office records, eh? n/t

[onager]

3. I had an unkind observation...

Well, actually I had quite a few while watching this thing.

Anyway, one thing I did notice - during the big Purity Ball, the camera panned the room and the younger girls just looked bored to death. You could almost hear the yawns and eye-rolling. But most of them are still at an age where they haven't learned to be as hypocritical as us grown-ups, and hide their real feelings.

In Frogmarch's clip, that little girl in pink is Randy Wilson's youngest daughter. There's a scene in the docu where her (slightly) older sister is getting some kind of abstinence lecture from a woman. Including a charming bit of advice about how after she's married, God will "open her womb" for her husband.

And BTW - the Wilsons home-school (naturally) and one scene shows Mom at a big conference of home-schoolers. Among other things, we learn that "Charles Darwin wasn't the first evolutionist. Satan was!"

[A HERETIC I AM]

5. Frank Zappa had it right 30+ years ago.

They want to turn this country into a fascist theocracy.

I'm on my phone or I'd post the vid clip, but if you haven't seen it, search YouTube for Zappa's appearance on "Crossfire".

[Curmudgeoness]

4. Where did they get the statistics?

Is it true that 25% of Americans are "Evangelical Christians" and 40% of Americans believe in Creationism? I wonder how they define Evangelical, or if anyone who believes that god created the earth therefore do not believe any part of evolution or science. If those stats are true, "heaven" help us.

I'm with you, Frogmarch, I am not sure I could stomach seeing the entire documentary. I would be depressed for a month that the world was surely falling apart---or at least the USA.

[frogmarch]

6. I wondered about

the statistics too. I think of Evangelicals as the door-to-door variety of Christians - and the rest as mainline - although Jehovah's Witnesses go door-to-door, and so do Mormons, and I don't think of Jovies and Mormons as Evangelicals. Maybe some people do, though.

It got me when the young woman in the docu said this:

“I would hate to go off and spend thousands of dollars on an education I wouldn’t use.”

Yeah, it wouldn’t take much book-larnin’ to be little more than an obedient sex partner and household servant who produces and cares for offspring for the rest of her life.

[Curmudgeoness]

7. About that book-larnin'

If this woman is going to home school her offspring, and I have to assume that she will have to, she really should have a little education. I used to be in favor of home schooling choices, but I am now convinced that it will ruin this country.

[progressoid]

8. Ugh, I know someone that did one of those purity balls with his daughter.

They are RW, fundie, homeschoolers.

I posted about it earlier this year http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022565133